Maccabi Haifa has a big fall in store for themselves after advancing to the UEFA Champions League group stages along with local Israeli league action for what should be a super few months coming up. The Greens were drawn into Group H where they will play Ligue 1\u2019s Paris Saint Germain, Juventus from Serie A and Benfica from Portugal.<\/p>\n
Lionel Messi, Neymar and Sergio Ramos will be returning to Israel after having just played the French Super Cup against Nantes earlier in the month as they will visit Sammy Ofer Stadium by the Carmel Mountain on Wednesday September 14th. Juventus will make their third trip to the Holy Land after having played Maccabi Tel Aviv back in 2004 and Haifa in 2009 as the Italian powerhouse will be in Israel on Tuesday October 11th during the Sukkot Holiday. Finally, Benfica will make their first venture to Israel when they take come to town on Wednesday November 2nd.<\/p>\n
However, before Barak Bachar\u2019s squad opens up the Champions League campaign on the road in Lisbon against Benfica next week, the Greens have a number of domestic clashes as they passed their first test at home with a 4-1 win over Maccabi Netanya as Omer Atzily scored a hat-trick in the victory<\/strong>. <\/p>\n Benny Lam\u2019s team opened the scoring as Igor Zlatanovic scored a header to give the diamond city squad a 1-0 lead in the 22nd minute. But Atzily nodded home a Pierre Cornud ball just at the stroke of halftime to draw the hosts even. In the 78th minute Atzily was yanked down in the box and slotted home a penalty while he added his third of the game ten minutes later when he curled in a gorgeous goal to help Haifa to a 3-1 lead. As the contest moved into injury time, Atzily played facilitator for Tjaron Chery\u2019s goal as Bachar\u2019s team grabbed the points with four unanswered goals.<\/p>\n \u201cThe staff proved that they are the very best as they prepared the players well both physically and mentally and we knew how to comeback from a deficit against a very strong team,\u201d Bachar commented. \u201cIn the second half we went back to the basics and our substitutes also helped matters in taking the win.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe penalty broke us,\u201d Lam said. \u201cIt shouldn\u2019t have happened and I am disappointed. The game could have ended 2-1 and it didn\u2019t have to end 4-1. Haifa played well and had opportunities, but what occurred here doesn\u2019t reflect our team, I hope that we will be able to improve our play.\u201d<\/p>\n Omer Atzily also reflected on the win, \u201cWe derived this and not only are we happy about advancing to the Champions League we were happy to come back home to Sammy Ofer and we are very happy with the result. This is the best team that I have played with and we look great. we have players of the highest level and you can see that when we are scoring three or four goals in a game.\u201d<\/p>\n In European play, Hapoel Beer Sheva advanced to the UEFA Conference League group stages after the defeated Craiova 4-3 on penalties<\/strong> after having had drawn 1-1 in both the first and second legs of the playoff round. Southern Reds keeper Omri Glazer came up huge in the penalty shootout stopping two spot kicks to see Elyaniv Barda\u2019s squad through. <\/p>\n After 90 minutes of goalless play, Ante Roguljic scored on a free kick in the 105th minute, but Tomer honed came right back for the hosts to draw even as the match headed to penalties where Glazer\u2019s heroics saved the day to help Beer Sheva punch their ticket to the group stages for the first time. <\/p>\n The Reds will now head to the group stages where they will match up against La Liga powerhouse Villarreal, Austria Wien and Lech Poznan. <\/p>\n \u201cWe played a very good game,\u201d Barda said following the game. \u201cWe created many chanced but we couldn\u2019t finish them. The guys never lost confidence that we could do it and we had a red army of 16,000 fans backing us up. We made it past three very good teams.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe had very tough games against very high level teams to get to the group stages,\u201d keeper Omri Glazer said. \u201cWe had to suffer in order to enjoy the fruits of our labor. We all deserved this and practiced all week long. However, we haven\u2019t proven anything just yet as we have the group stages, the league and cup ahead of us.\u201d<\/p>\n Tomer Hemed reflected on the win, \u201cTo win a game like this is a real team effort. I may have scored but everyone gave their heart and soul. We did it and it doesn\u2019t matter how as we were able to meet our goal. This was a very tough game and we saw how physical they are form last weeks game. We need to work on our game but we will learn from this match and the result is most important.\u201d<\/p>\n In France, Maccabi Tel Aviv were eliminated from Conference League play after falling at Nice 2-0 (2-1 on aggregate)<\/strong>after conceding a goal in overtime as they will not play in the group stages of the competition. Alexis Claude-Maurice scored in the first half to even up the two-legged tie and Alexis Beka Beka found the winner in the extra session to see the Ligue 1 side through.<\/p>\n Yellow-and-blue keeper Daniel Peretz spoke about the defeat, \u201cIt\u2019s really disappointing and we had chances to score but to give up a goal like this we have to look at it as that it\u2019s for the good and we have to just move on. Nice is super quality team and the toughest club to get in the draw. I\u2019m proud of the entire team and the fans as well, there is nothing that we can do.\u201d <\/p>\n In other Israeli soccer action, Bnei Sakhnin stunned Hapoel Tel Aviv 2-0<\/strong> at Bloomfield Stadium as winger Nicolao Dumitru scored a first half brace in the win. Taleb Tawhatha sent Dumitru a terrific cross in the box that the latter put home in the 11th minute while 20 minutes later the winger found the back of the goal once again as he pounced on a loose ball following a cover kick to secure the victory. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s great to begin the season this way,\u201d Sakhnin coach Haim Silvas said. \u201cTo come to this stadium against this team and win in our first game is just perfect. We made our fans very happy as well as ourselves and we could have even won by more goals. Next up is Maccabi Haifa later this week and that will be a big physical test.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo one can believe what has been happening to us, but things happen in soccer,\u201d Hapoel coach Kobi Refuah said following the loss. \u201cYou can play poorly but when the opponent begins to press us easily it is very worrying. I have to see why and we need to improve. as we are giving us goals that should not happen at this level.\u201d<\/p>\n Elsewhere, Hapoel Jerusalem and Kiryat Shemona drew 1-1<\/strong> as the sides split the points up in the northern capital. Itamar Shviro continued his goal scoring run as the striker gave Menachem Koretzky\u2019s the lead in the 9th minute but Cedric Don headed home the tying marker in the second half for the capital city reds as each team earned a point. <\/p>\n \u201cWe started the game well and scored an early goal but we didn\u2019t show up in the second half,\u201d Koretzky said. \u201cWe stayed back and we should have pressed and attack in order to score a second goal. We didn\u2019t deserve more than a point but we will take it and move on.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe came into this game looking tired and our poor start for the second time in as many weeks led to an early goal,\u201d Jerusalem coach Ziv Arie said. \u201cBut I will take the fact that we came back and we played well after we drew even.\u201d<\/p>\n Finally, Ashdod blanked Sektzia Nes Ziona 1-0<\/strong> on a Nenad Cvetkovic header goal in the 45th minute off a short corner kick to hand the port city side the 3-points and the win. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Maccabi Haifa has a big fall in store for themselves after advancing to the UEFA Champions League group stages along with local Israeli league action for what should be a super few months coming up. The Greens were drawn into Group H where they will play Ligue 1\u2019s Paris Saint Germain, Juventus from Serie A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":65144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[633,21,80,1115],"class_list":["post-65143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football-israel-2","tag-bnei-sakhnin","tag-hapoel-beer-sheva","tag-maccabi-haifa","tag-omer-atzily","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n